Steppe is a decent slow protection card. It isn't a miracle worker. Ruin Ghost helps it a lot but even so as you say multicolored decks are less susceptible.
I run a casual version of the golem deck, but I think it is better than the one that was posted. Why you ask.....4x Sculpting Steel.
I love ramping into Lodestone Golem turn 3 followed by double Sculpting Steel turn 4. You could easily cut the weaker golems to make room for them. Additionally, the mana base seems wrong on the posted list, but I won't say with certainty, as I have not tried it.
I had considered using Sejiri Steppe but honestly, IMO it's only useful as a way to get around a mono colored blocker. For example, they have StP in hand, I lay down steppe and they hit the target while steppe is on the stack. Or they cast it first and I can't lay my land down in response. It just didn't seem like it would fit well with the deck and I'd just end up with a land that comes into play tapped. I admit I didn't play test the deck very much though, because I had intended on using a Mono Red build all the way up until the start of the match.
Overall I've had a great time playing Classic Tribal. I only started playing this format a few weeks ago from a suggestion of a friend and I have enjoyed using my deck building skills in new and different ways. Being a Classic/Legacy player, the switch to using a majority of creatures has been against my play style but it's good to branch out a bit.
Thanks to Shard for holding the events and thanks to all the other players who showed up.
What makes you so sure they are going to announce over-extended? Wouldn't it have made sense to announce that at the same time that under-extended was announced as to quit the turbulence?
To be fair, (and i'm far from a tourney player), the new extended will be Jund, Faeries, and whatever scars of mirrodin gives us...
On the casual side, this change irks me because extended was a great place to play casual games online. The hyper expensive cards of last seasons std have settled down in price, and you were protected a bit from the shear brokenness of the classic/legacy card pool (now with extra silly Urza craziness). Now my fun to play Sekkuar Deathkeeper deck gets tossed into the classic card pool and just disapears.
Don't you worry. Couple more months and you won't see Jund anymore :)
About the EXT:
I agree with all of you. I hate faeries. nuff sad!!!!11one
But seriously, I think this was one of the Wizard's biggest mistakes ever. Extended just lost so, so, so much cards, meaning so much less competitive and casual decks to build. Screw that :(
I thought gideon was above my already too high mana curve. I also thought he didn't have a game winning ultimate, and without the ability to attack, I thought he wasn't as good as other options.
I invested a few tickets in a few sets of Great Sable Stags (got them at 0.75 tix each), just because i enjoy a bit of low-value speculating. If faeries is as dominant as seems to be suggested I expect them to go up in value a bit over the next few months.
If the rumblings of over-extended get any louder I might have a little dabble in warren instigators, to keep me entertained.
IRL though, I've been building a shockland manabase for doran, and hence am a bit irked. Still, I'm optimistic that OE might show up, so I'm going to keep hold of them for now.
You said you would show us a good land commander deck and you did. Impressive. It is upsetting to see so many Eldrazi in Multiplayer (though quite predictable). I thought perhaps the rumors exaggerated.
Two weeks, two minutes, two years - it won't matter. The price change will happen the instant that the announcement is made.
I think the timing was driven more by the Pro Tour - this is about the right amount of time for the pros to work on the new format, without MTGO solving it in advance. Pro Tours are best when they are not stall formats.
Well Hermit is one of my two favorite cards in the set. I used to pilot a jank version of Mike Pustilnik's original Squirrel Prison back in the day. One version I had, I tossed in Tradewind Riders (I am sure this was not my innovation but I remember doing it and liking it.) I don't think I bothered with any counters in mine going for total board control and rush. I also didn't like Rofellos that much. This version looks like an early 2k version if I am not mistaken. Not quite playable online yet. (Missing destiny)
I for one stopped enjoying the TWA awhile ago. I can't really name the cause but it just seemed perhaps a little like a double standard being applied. "Don't Bring Tier-1 decks!", "do bring competitive decks!" etc. And then like yourself I get into deck building ruts. I have built many of the possible archetypes for the format and very few decks perform the way Antired, Nayawizards (or elves), and Sphinges did, so I haven't brought them. I have my own version of the wall deck that does fairly well in casual when I bring it out but being a wall deck it is boring. I like EN's theme of Mythic added to it to make it something more. Though I have to wonder where his Gideon is.
It is difficult to find a deck that one likes that is consistent against a wide open field and is also not horribly broken in a way that gets evil stares from all participants.
I would like to see the TWA be more friendly than it is. But I think it should drop the bannings. I don't think they work. As several people say they would not. To properly fix the format it would have to either be neutered or given back sideboarding. I would love to try tribal wars with sideboarding but as has been said in the past it would be an impossible task to enforce it. Age old dilemma, no real solutions. Just show up, bring a deck you want to play and hope you don't get paired with match ups from hell and you get opponents who know how to say "Hello" and "Good luck" without relying on the damned macro. (Yes if the players were more social that would help.)
Grats to Mel and AJ. I am not surprised that they won.
A lot of those cards will bounce back up once they announce over-extended. Ravinica duels would be the base of that format, especially with all 10 fetches. Now's actually probably a good time for people who don't have any to pick them up cheap.
A lot of those cards will bounce back up once they announce over-extended. Ravinica duels would be the base of that format, epecially with all 10 fetches. Now's actually probably a good time for people who don't have any to pick them up cheap.
Yeah, I completely agree. There are tons of cards in M11 that go very well with Ajani, plus *spoiler* today we just got this great new ww card: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=252097 which likely means a new WW deck will be played, probably combined with some cards you and I mentioned. *spoiler*
I think the price charts show why the ext change was a bad idea......yay we get to play faeries again, oh wait, thats one of the most hated decks ever.
I actually dont mind the change that much, though i feel its going to make ext a very boring format. My problem is the fact that they only gave 2 weeks notice. 2 weeks?!! I know wotc is filled with incompetents, but only giving 2 weeks notice for a change that is so huge is not just irresponsible, but ridiculous. It is going to cause a large amount of players to quit (like the players whose collections just went from $2000 to $500), and it certainly creates a huge amount of ill will towards mtgo from a large amount of their customers. Just one more thing they do to push away their customers.
And this new ext format is going to be one of the boringest formats ever. Jund and faeries, just what everyone wants to play...again.
i agree with most everything you have written about roe limited. I havee been playing it a lot (mostly successfully), and your advice is pretty straight on.
A comment on the last line of "cornerstones" : Hellcarver demon is pretty much unplayable unless you plan on using it as a blocker until they are at 6. It has been played against me multiple times and each time has made them lose. Funniest being when i regressed it with its ability on the stack.
And spawnsire sucks some major eldrazi balls. I would only play spawnsire if it was somehow the only finisher i had in the whole deck. Every other eldrazi is better than it, including hand of emrakul (cause at least it can be cast on t3).
Doing a non random 2hg would be really cool at some point, but you'd need a lot of lead in time to craft evil decks. It would be maybe too exclusive though, unless you solicited for names of people looking for partners and posted them weeks before.
Oh man, I sure wish I remembered my old 'choose your own" book - one of my best memories, actually, I'm sure if I found it the grass wouldn't be as green as I remember it, but maybe :) Good stuff!
Steppe is a decent slow protection card. It isn't a miracle worker. Ruin Ghost helps it a lot but even so as you say multicolored decks are less susceptible.
Yeah I can see that. Though he is an absolute beast with walls.dec. A serious house to any creature deck so amazing in twc.
I run a casual version of the golem deck, but I think it is better than the one that was posted. Why you ask.....4x Sculpting Steel.
I love ramping into Lodestone Golem turn 3 followed by double Sculpting Steel turn 4. You could easily cut the weaker golems to make room for them. Additionally, the mana base seems wrong on the posted list, but I won't say with certainty, as I have not tried it.
- Jacobs
I had considered using Sejiri Steppe but honestly, IMO it's only useful as a way to get around a mono colored blocker. For example, they have StP in hand, I lay down steppe and they hit the target while steppe is on the stack. Or they cast it first and I can't lay my land down in response. It just didn't seem like it would fit well with the deck and I'd just end up with a land that comes into play tapped. I admit I didn't play test the deck very much though, because I had intended on using a Mono Red build all the way up until the start of the match.
Overall I've had a great time playing Classic Tribal. I only started playing this format a few weeks ago from a suggestion of a friend and I have enjoyed using my deck building skills in new and different ways. Being a Classic/Legacy player, the switch to using a majority of creatures has been against my play style but it's good to branch out a bit.
Thanks to Shard for holding the events and thanks to all the other players who showed up.
"Don't you worry. Couple more months and you won't see Jund anymore :)"
Except all over the new extended...
find anything anyone from wizards has said about this format...
What makes you so sure they are going to announce over-extended? Wouldn't it have made sense to announce that at the same time that under-extended was announced as to quit the turbulence?
To be fair, (and i'm far from a tourney player), the new extended will be Jund, Faeries, and whatever scars of mirrodin gives us...
On the casual side, this change irks me because extended was a great place to play casual games online. The hyper expensive cards of last seasons std have settled down in price, and you were protected a bit from the shear brokenness of the classic/legacy card pool (now with extra silly Urza craziness). Now my fun to play Sekkuar Deathkeeper deck gets tossed into the classic card pool and just disapears.
Don't you worry. Couple more months and you won't see Jund anymore :)
About the EXT:
I agree with all of you. I hate faeries. nuff sad!!!!11one
But seriously, I think this was one of the Wizard's biggest mistakes ever. Extended just lost so, so, so much cards, meaning so much less competitive and casual decks to build. Screw that :(
I thought gideon was above my already too high mana curve. I also thought he didn't have a game winning ultimate, and without the ability to attack, I thought he wasn't as good as other options.
The old Extended was so awesome. The new extended will be so lame.
Do we really have to go to legacy to avoid Jund?
I invested a few tickets in a few sets of Great Sable Stags (got them at 0.75 tix each), just because i enjoy a bit of low-value speculating. If faeries is as dominant as seems to be suggested I expect them to go up in value a bit over the next few months.
If the rumblings of over-extended get any louder I might have a little dabble in warren instigators, to keep me entertained.
IRL though, I've been building a shockland manabase for doran, and hence am a bit irked. Still, I'm optimistic that OE might show up, so I'm going to keep hold of them for now.
You said you would show us a good land commander deck and you did. Impressive. It is upsetting to see so many Eldrazi in Multiplayer (though quite predictable). I thought perhaps the rumors exaggerated.
I always enjoy reading your articles and insight.
Two weeks, two minutes, two years - it won't matter. The price change will happen the instant that the announcement is made.
I think the timing was driven more by the Pro Tour - this is about the right amount of time for the pros to work on the new format, without MTGO solving it in advance. Pro Tours are best when they are not stall formats.
Well Hermit is one of my two favorite cards in the set. I used to pilot a jank version of Mike Pustilnik's original Squirrel Prison back in the day. One version I had, I tossed in Tradewind Riders (I am sure this was not my innovation but I remember doing it and liking it.) I don't think I bothered with any counters in mine going for total board control and rush. I also didn't like Rofellos that much. This version looks like an early 2k version if I am not mistaken. Not quite playable online yet. (Missing destiny)
I for one stopped enjoying the TWA awhile ago. I can't really name the cause but it just seemed perhaps a little like a double standard being applied. "Don't Bring Tier-1 decks!", "do bring competitive decks!" etc. And then like yourself I get into deck building ruts. I have built many of the possible archetypes for the format and very few decks perform the way Antired, Nayawizards (or elves), and Sphinges did, so I haven't brought them. I have my own version of the wall deck that does fairly well in casual when I bring it out but being a wall deck it is boring. I like EN's theme of Mythic added to it to make it something more. Though I have to wonder where his Gideon is.
It is difficult to find a deck that one likes that is consistent against a wide open field and is also not horribly broken in a way that gets evil stares from all participants.
I would like to see the TWA be more friendly than it is. But I think it should drop the bannings. I don't think they work. As several people say they would not. To properly fix the format it would have to either be neutered or given back sideboarding. I would love to try tribal wars with sideboarding but as has been said in the past it would be an impossible task to enforce it. Age old dilemma, no real solutions. Just show up, bring a deck you want to play and hope you don't get paired with match ups from hell and you get opponents who know how to say "Hello" and "Good luck" without relying on the damned macro. (Yes if the players were more social that would help.)
Grats to Mel and AJ. I am not surprised that they won.
A lot of those cards will bounce back up once they announce over-extended. Ravinica duels would be the base of that format, especially with all 10 fetches. Now's actually probably a good time for people who don't have any to pick them up cheap.
A lot of those cards will bounce back up once they announce over-extended. Ravinica duels would be the base of that format, epecially with all 10 fetches. Now's actually probably a good time for people who don't have any to pick them up cheap.
I was 1 card away from beating that dec too...
Yeah, I completely agree. There are tons of cards in M11 that go very well with Ajani, plus *spoiler* today we just got this great new ww card: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=252097 which likely means a new WW deck will be played, probably combined with some cards you and I mentioned. *spoiler*
But thanks for your compliments :)
I think the price charts show why the ext change was a bad idea......yay we get to play faeries again, oh wait, thats one of the most hated decks ever.
I actually dont mind the change that much, though i feel its going to make ext a very boring format. My problem is the fact that they only gave 2 weeks notice. 2 weeks?!! I know wotc is filled with incompetents, but only giving 2 weeks notice for a change that is so huge is not just irresponsible, but ridiculous. It is going to cause a large amount of players to quit (like the players whose collections just went from $2000 to $500), and it certainly creates a huge amount of ill will towards mtgo from a large amount of their customers. Just one more thing they do to push away their customers.
And this new ext format is going to be one of the boringest formats ever. Jund and faeries, just what everyone wants to play...again.
i agree with most everything you have written about roe limited. I havee been playing it a lot (mostly successfully), and your advice is pretty straight on.
A comment on the last line of "cornerstones" : Hellcarver demon is pretty much unplayable unless you plan on using it as a blocker until they are at 6. It has been played against me multiple times and each time has made them lose. Funniest being when i regressed it with its ability on the stack.
And spawnsire sucks some major eldrazi balls. I would only play spawnsire if it was somehow the only finisher i had in the whole deck. Every other eldrazi is better than it, including hand of emrakul (cause at least it can be cast on t3).
Doing a non random 2hg would be really cool at some point, but you'd need a lot of lead in time to craft evil decks. It would be maybe too exclusive though, unless you solicited for names of people looking for partners and posted them weeks before.
Oh man, I sure wish I remembered my old 'choose your own" book - one of my best memories, actually, I'm sure if I found it the grass wouldn't be as green as I remember it, but maybe :) Good stuff!